Search

Materials informatics involves the application of computational methodologies to process and interpret scientific and engineering data concerning materials. Although this concept has been well established in the fields of biology, drug discovery, and classic materials research, its application in the field of dental materials is still in its infancy. This narrative review comprehensively summarizes the advantages, limitations, and future perspectives of materials informatics from 2003 to 2022 for exploring the optimum compositions in developing new materials using artificial intelligence. The findings indicate that materials informatics, which is a recognized and established concept in the materials science field, will accelerate the process of restorative materials development and contribute to produce new insights into dental materials research.

In this study, the fatigue crack damage evolution procedure of AISI 4340 high-strength steel was systematically studied in quasi-in-situ via three-dimensional X-ray technology and scanning electron microscopy. It is found that the surface roughness and uniformity of crack growth in high-toughness steel are higher than those in low-toughness steel. The crack bifurcation and crack closure effect would both prolong the effective crack length; accordingly, the effective fatigue crack growth (FCG) rate decreases due to above crack growth characteristics in high-toughness steel. Based on the experimental results and theoretical analysis, a new FCG mechanism is proposed, i.e. the blunting and re-sharpening to micro-scale void coalescence (BRS-MVC) mixed mechanism. Few micro-scale voids initiated near the crack tip would be surrounded by the blunting crack tip at low Δ K zone, which is controlled by the BRS mechanism. More micro-scale void clusters would occur around the crack tip at high Δ K zone, which may be attributed to the MVC mechanism. The new FCG mechanism provides a unique perspective for the FCG behavior of high-strength steels, which could promote the fatigue life prediction of metallic materials.

A novel asymmetric dual-core PCF coupler with wavelength-flattened response is proposed and its coupling characteristics of this coupler are investigated using full-vector finite element method and beam propagation method. Numerical simulation result shows that the wavelength-flattened response range as wider as hundreds of nanometer and the coupling length can be reduced down to the level of micrometer. The coupling properties can be tunable by changing the size of central air hole of the PCF coupler. In addition, the polarized-mode coupling shows that the proposed asymmetric dual-core PCF coupler is insensitive to the polarized mode.

A fiber-optic acoustic pressure sensor based on a large-area nanolayer silver diaphragm is demonstrated with a high dynamic pressure sensitivity of 160 nm/Pa at 4 kHz frequency. The sensor exhibits a noise limited detectable pressure level of 14.5 μPa/Hz(1/2). Its high dynamic pressure sensitivity and simple fabrication process make it an attractive tool for acoustic sensing and photo-acoustic spectroscopy.